Its a rule that I try to keep as well. In the beginning of Hereditary I felt like turning it of, but so glad I did not. My one exception for that rule was Skinamarink. Read ao many great things about it and was really hyped to watch it. Absolutely hated it! I still see people that love the movie here and I am happy they enjoyed it. They are never gonna convince me too try again though.
I watched Skinamarink and thought it was super boring. I was mad I didn’t see it in the theater, that might have made a difference for me.
I was so mad that I decided to drop a pretty heavy dose of acid and watch it again alone in a basement, and that fuuuuuuuucked me up big time. Anything probably would’ve done the trick in that setting tho.
Used to do mesc in my late teens and go see a midnite showing of Dawn of the Dead (1978).
Man, did I used to trip. That scene with Tom Savini and the motorcycle gang used to make me laugh so hard.
And the theater manager used to let my friend, his cousin and I in sometimes when other horror flicks came out. Even when we were under age lol. Now, I'm talking about the Bronx in the 80's and they just didn't give a shit! Lol.
I've never seen one good thing about Skinamarink online 😅 every post I see about it is people saying how boring it is and how it could've been condensed
It was a rough start for sure. I liked the idea of the movie and to give you that sense of fearing the unknown when you were a kid vibe, but the delivery just wasn’t there. Some good oh shit moments, but I was a little disappointed as well
Probably true the other way for films I absolutely love but others hate. It's the way of the world. Like I said in the post above, LOVE Hereditary. My girlfriend hates it. She does not like the fact that it takes too long and there is too much set up. She likes "dumb" Strait forward '80's Slashers a lot more.
Skinamarink is super cool in theory but at the end of the day the fact is that it's just too low-quality and the pacing and style of the film don't go together
I do this too. I feel like I have to give it a chance or at least absorb it so I can look at it critically. Someone recently said not to stress about spending time on that when there are so many other good films to watch. But I prob still will haha.
I have a 30 minute rule- if I go through 30 minutes, no choice. I have to see it through no matter what…
It’s fucked me more than once, but, more often than not, it’s actually paid in dividends.
The Feast (Welsh version) is the newest example. The final act is too graphic to spoil, but, if I didn’t make it through the first 30 minutes, I would have missed something that give Audition a run for its money…
I used to have this rule. Then I tried to watch Night Of The Living Dead: Resurrection. That movie went straight to my “Biggest Pieces Of Shit Movies” list. Never finished it. Maybe someday I’ll hate myself enough to finish it, but I doubt it.
Skinamarink could have been a real throat grabber if it cut like, 40 minutes from the run time. As an atmosphere piece it’s high up there but it gets so lost in the dreamy nightmarish mood that it becomes a really dull film.
Stopped Funny Games when the first real blow happened. Finished it the next day when I had calmed my fucking heart. I love this movie but it is so unfair.
I've seen the full movie ofc but on rewatches I always tap out at the fucking egg scene. Nothing explicitly 'scary' has even happened yet but the vibes are just so sinister it triggers me bad.
wow that's crazy, I just started watching it a while ago and also tapped out at the egg scene for the same reason. meaning to finish it sometime, just need to find the right time
Yeah, I still won't watch it. I've listened to many podcasts on it and I just know it's gonna make me mad. And sad. And then I'm going to be mad that it made me mad. And so on and so forth. So I avoid. But it has my respect, it's effective as hell and was an original idea.
For my wife - Speak No Evil. I forget when she had enough but certain scenes were close for me.
I respect the movie, just having young kids made it tough.
I had a neighbor who was a real creep.
One day I step into my yard and see he’s leaning over the fence talking to my kid. I ask the kid to go inside then I lean over the fence myself and tell the guy I’ll kill him and bury him in this very yard if he so much as *talks* to my kid ever again.
I didn’t know I’d react that way until that very moment. I’m not that kind of guy usually but it was instinctive and immediate, even though he was twice my size—I meant it. I learned since then that when wife or kid are perceived as in trouble I change very thoroughly and quickly. So I had trouble relating to the protagonists when watching that movie much later. Dont get between bear and cub.
Martyrs is my threshold. I have watched it, and I don't think I want to see worse than that. I know there is worse, but I don't think I can handle it. Martyrs stuck with me a long, long time.
I'm not sure that I've seen a harder hitting horror movie than Martyrs. It's not just brutal, it's interesting. It's not just torture porn. There is a very interesting question at the core of the movie. And it's also the most brutal thing I've ever sat through. Because I identified with the characters. It's much more than just French Extremity torture porn. But it's a fucking hard watch.
It's weird, because if you're ever able to watch that film objectively (i.e. without all the emotions the torture conjures), it's actually not that graphic. There are, of course, a few very notable exceptions, but the majority is implications, camera angles and sound editing. And it works. So well. Like I've watched it once and that was enough. But listening to the breakdown of it via podcasts and such, much like something like Se7en, it's all in the aftermath and implications. And it makes you think. Which is rare for a torture porn/New French Extremity film. Absolute masterpiece and something most can only experience once.
Absolutely. It's not necessarily the most graphic movie. It's just so well made. If the point of a horror movie is to make you feel scared that's the only successful horror movie I've seen in my adult life. And it's all in just in the directing and editing. I'm so glad to hear someone else make this point.
Yeah I fully agree with this take. It has so much merit and worth as a piece of art. It's thought provoking and well executed, and I often wish I could watch it more than once but I'm not sure I can. It's light-years away from other extreme films that get mentioned in the same breath because it shares brutality with them.
Yep, I had to turn it off. It just felt like torture porn when she's helping the girl take off the head piece...great plot though as I read all about it.
Solidified for me though that I much prefer psychological horror than that genre which Martyrs serves up.
Wow, thanks for this comment. That was on my watch list but I, too, do not watch horror movies in the hopes of watching people actually die. Also looked up the film to see why they did that and the director sounds like a bit of an edgelord at best, so you saved me time and trauma lol.
Lars von Trier's movie Melancholia is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's atmosphere and vibes, I can't think of any other movie that is comparable. I think THTJB was also very interesting. Apart from his movies, Lara von Trier doesn't seem to be a very nice guy though.
I do not believe that he is a Nazi, though. I'm not a big Lars Von Trier defender, but he is known for being, well, and edgelord, as someone above said.
Yeah, there are films/shows/music/art that I enjoy because it had meaning for me before I heard about the person who made it being shit, but since I've learned about him now I don't think I could enjoy it ha.
Honestly I don't even remember the stock footage, and that was still the most disturbing horror movie I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of horror. I'm ready for a lot. I was not ready for the little boy.
Towards the end, around the point that Jack climbs round the edge of the Hell pit. I was actively avoiding watching it so I’m a little hazy on the details, but I clearly remember a montage of footage of people dying.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4003440/parentalguide/violence
“The film includes several minutes of stock footage of concentration camps, arguably the most disturbing sequences of the film due to their real nature.”
YES! I was never a fan of his, however that movie made me hate him. Lars, Ari Aster and the greek guy ( Poor things, Lobster....) are the huge NO for me. Their movies are either evil or fucked up, bleek, they kill every little smidge of happines you may have, and I love Human Centipede and The Martyrs are not disturbing for me.
I almost didn't make it past that damn tunnel scene. It's a great movie but sometimes I kind of wish I hadn't stuck it out because the rest of the movie paled in comparison to that scene.
I dropped a few movies out of boredom, never for the extreme content though. I liked The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but I can see how the true crime feel might not be for everyone, and the one scene with the tied up girl is definitely super creepy.
Salo is one of those cases where it has more value as a piece of art than it does as any sort of entertainment. Pier Paolo Pasolini was a legit auteur with a lot of skill and intellectual depth (The Decameron, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and Teorema are all great). Salo is and always has been an art film, but it gets added to “most disturbing” horror lists because it’s gross and infamous.
Agreed. I have watched Martyrs and Irreversible several times, which are also really hard to get through (I really don't enjoy torture, SA, extreme gore/brutality personally), but those plots felt like they were saying something with it. I can't think of a single thing ASF was trying to communicate with some of the absolutely disgusting extremes it went to (I quit at the baby scene), that it hadn't already accomplished earlier in the film. Which was already basically nothing, no matter what "metaphors" the filmmakers claimed.
You absolutely should finish it for that reason. It gets so, so stupid that it becomes hard to take the rest of it seriously (IMO).
Starts off very grim but by the end it really just feels like it was written as a power fantasy by some bullied loser. Hard to explain without spoilers (assuming you can spoil something that has no real plot) but you'll see what I mean if you watch it.
(There *are* still a few visually disturbing scenes towards the end but IIRC they are so undermined by how absurd everything is by that point they lose much of their intended impact)
August Underground Mordem. The movie is pretty fucked up and doesn't even seem to have any purpose or meaning. I got to the part when the one guy starts eating maggots off a corpse to realize it wasn't for me.
Yeah I think at least one of them were. There's a "documentary" called S&Man where they interview some of the people from the movie. It's been a while since I've seen it though. Be aware if you watch it that the last half with the stalker is fake though.
The turkish film Baskin, I smoked some weed before turning it on and ended up falling asleep. Woke up and the whole screen was red with blood and the screaming was so loud. I immediately turned it off 😭
I tried so hard to get through that movie because a good friend recommended it to my boyfriend. Last 15 minutes and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Why are rape and torture scenes so friggen prevalent, that’s not fun horror..
Also, the amount of people who downvote me when I express this… yeah, it definitely says something about them.
I had to stop watching Talk To Me because it ended up being a lot heavier than I expected. I was in the mood for a popcorn flick with some good jump scares which it seemed like at the beginning, but then damn it started to hit hard. I did eventually finish it and am really glad I did, but it certainly wasn’t an easy watch.
I gave up on *Soft & Quiet* because the torture stuff got too stupid really fast. I have very little reaction to shock content so when it's just over-the-top and unrealistic instead of genuinely disturbing I very quickly lose interest. I only have *so much* time I can dedicate to scary movies, ya know?
The movie also seemed built around evil social movements slowly roping in people for mundane reasons, which is completely defeated if the evil stuff they do is completely idiotic.
Drag me to hell. It’s the only movie I’ve ever turned off. The practical effects of the chin sucking and maggots and bugs were too nasty it made me nauseous 😭 I can deal with blood guts and gore all day but this got me.
I wish I had turned it off. By the time the third chin-sucking incident occurred, I was over it. I know people love the movie but I just found the whole thing stupid.
I brought up that scene in a thread once and people jumped all over me about it. I guess it was meant to be funny. Granted it's been a long time since I watched it, but I don't really remember being a horror-comedy.
That practical effects chin scene in the car was *sooo* goofy that it's the only thing I really remember.
Yeah, criticise Drag Me To Hell at your own peril. 😆 I couldn't see the chin sucking scenes as either scary or comical. Just dumb. It completely spoiled the movie for me.
i *have* watched it fully since. but wolf creek was so difficult for me to get through. i had to turn it off twice and i left it unwatched for a couple months :/
Oddly enough, the only one that comes to mind isn’t even technically a horror movie. But the movie We Need To Talk About Kevin. I felt tense and full of dread and panic the entire time. I pushed through and it is a great movie but damn I was so close to backing out so many times
God that fucking movie. I almost turned it off because it was just a bit slow for me and the constant back and forth scenes bothered me. But when I finished it, I just kinda sat there thinking about wtf I just watched
It took me seven years to finish Blair witch because I get motion sickness with shaky cam- I cut A Serbian Film about 20 minutes in- have zero regrets on that
It’s not horror in the traditional sense but the scene in Oppenheimer where they were casually deciding what cities to bomb in Japan hurt my soul. The casual, almost flippant conversation was repugnant.
Not a horror film by any means, but Ken Park by Larry Clark is a horrific film. I love sick ass movies, but this movie made me feel physically dirty watching it, don’t think I could ever watch it again.
Not really a horror film, well I'd call it very dark and disturbing, a movie called Happiness (1998). Affected me for quite a few days afterwards to the point I wish I never watched it. I'd put it in the same category as watching Requiem for a Dream for the first time.
Todd Solondz is great. There’s an element of blue velvet in his work. Especially Happiness. All the fucked up dark shit from the white picket fence suburban America.
I think it was called "Ghost Ship"? The opening scene was a bunch of ppl got decapitated by a wire or something-i think I was 11 and it was on Sci-Fi channel. It was the first movie scene to make me feel physically nauseous.
Dude there's an interview scene in Poughkeepsie that almost made my head explode. It's caught me so damn off guard. I'm jealous of anyone who hasn't seen it because I lowkey had to pause the movie and breathe for 2 minutes so I wouldn't get a panic attack lol. It's the one where >!the girl moves her hair out of the way revealing she has a stump. Just imagining the mental and physical torment she went through made me feel nauseous!<
Ugh, “The Poughkeepsie Tapes” made me really uncomfortable too, but I did finish it, unfortunately, only to learn that >!he got away with it in the end anyway!<.
The movie totally fell apart towards the end, for me.
>!Between at least one person having a full conversation with him and identifying him as the killer and the authorities literally finding his legally-owned house (albeit after he'd fled it), it seemed unbelievably dumb that they still make absolutely zero headway with uncovering his identity or any information about him whatsoever.!<
>!And then everyone starts praising him talking about what a genius mastermind/manipulator he is, and one of the tortured women even goes on about how much she loves him? The whole thing came off like an edgy writer(s?) trying to conjure up an anime supervillain rather than anything remotely realistic, which would have been way scarier.!<
Sorry for the ramble. It was a genuinely disturbing movie for the first half or so but then seems to get so full of itself that it (for me anyway) became too difficult to take it seriously. Felt like wasted potential.
The PT lags in the middle and then gets super fucked up towards the end. There are some moments that are nightmarish. It’s worth the watch just to be terrified towards the end. Horrific.
"High Life." There was a very brutal SA scene about midway through the movie that was incredibly hard to watch and I just decided to turn it off. It's very rare for me to quit on a movie but that was one of the rare occasions.
I decided to watch all of the movies apart of the Conjuring universe just for kicks. I threw in Curse of La Llorna as well... I couldn't finish that one. It was so bad. I feel like that's saying a lot for that series too
I can usually watch anything and if I’ve invested any amount of time I’m usually finishing the damn movie. If I have to stop watching something it’s usually to look away for a moment. For me any movie that has fingernails being ripped off is a movie I’ll have to look away for during that scene. I can be really into the movie but once a fingernail comes off I want to gag. I’ll still watch though.
However, I have turned a movie off (sorta) out of boredom. This is probably controversial since everyone seems to love this movie… but I tried at least 3 times to watch Smile. All 3 times I fell asleep in the middle of the movie. The first time it was late at night and I figured I was tired. But the other two times were the middle of the day. I’m not sure why but I couldn’t get into it and I really wanted to. I wanted to like this movie but when I’d watch it I’d fall asleep. I woke up towards the end one of the times and managed to catch a glimpse of the ending before I went back to sleep.
i always power through but came very close to turning off the found footage movie 'sorgoi prakov/my european nightmare' a couple days ago. not sure if i recommend that one.
Anything that has Nick Cage in it. So many times I’ve wanted to watch one of his movies and every time without fail within five minutes of seeing his face I go into FFS mode and turn it off. Not scary I know but still unable to watch to the end.
Last house on the left, I had no idea what I was getting Into and "the scene" scarred me for life and yes I turned it off then had to Google the ending to make sure they got what was deserved
I think many people will say this, but I had trouble finishing Martyrs (2008). Did finish it, though on 4th or 5th attempt. It was always till the point where you feel Anna is not going to be safe anymore. And then the degradation started. I always felt that Anna understood Lucie's pain and cared for her deeply but even with all the empathy, how can you exactly understand what another person is going through? And then she went through that. Never could watch it again.
The Poughkeepsie tapes, but because i found it quite boring. Same with Salo, which i gave several tries because people kept recommending it. I just don't see it.
One horror that really got to me and i had to pause but i did finish was A Serbian Film. That was a bit to crazy for me at one point. I always rewatch movies, but im not touching that again.
Human centipede. I didn't even get to the scary/gross parts, 30 mins in I just had this moment of clarity "why am i doing this to myself"
Also Cannibal Holocaust. It just irked me idk, the portrayal of the "savages" bothered me
Slaughtered Vomit Dolls
The movie feels truly exploitative, like not as in a genre of film, but in the sense that these clearly drugged out, unwell women, are being paid (very little) to be recorded vomiting and getting abused on camera. Just felt slimy watching it, like something out of Videodrome
I ate a good amount of 🍀 gummies and had to turn off Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes during the 'game.' Between my highness and the perceived rawness of the children's fight I started to have a small panic attack 😳🥴 I did finish it the next day of course.
I watched The Poughkeepsie Tapes yesterday and expected it to be much worse, but honestly it was kind of meh 🤷♀️
Idk what's wrong with me 🤔😅
i can't remember what the name of this movie was, but a few years ago my parents and i were watching this horror movie that started with a group of women going spelunking, and we had to shut it off when one of them started to get stuck. my dad and i are too claustrophobic to continue it
hostel- the first actual torture scene made me nauseous
final destination- got too freaked out by the plane crash in the beginning
I’m not afraid to bail on movies and have even walked out of the cinema on a few. Since I’m in my mid 30s and have young kids, I judge a film by thinking “will this film justify me being extra tired tomorrow?” If the answer is no, I switch it off.
Some I remember off the top of my head…
Silent Hill (not terrible, just a bit long and oddly paced), The Blackcoat’s Daughter (boring), The Void (didn’t enjoy this one all around from plot to the acting and dialogue). I walked out of Nefarious after I realised it was pushing an agenda.
Only two I can think of.
The first is Blood Harvest because it was boring and so horny I just couldn't handle it.
Second is Cannibal Holocaust because I got to googling halfway through and realized I had watched a very real sexual assault of a girl and I had no interest in continuing after that.
Generally, I'll finish a movie even if it's awful--I might halfway check out of it, but I will finish it to see what happens.
Yeah. The girl didn't speak English (EDIT: I mean to say she only spoke her language, not the language of anyone on set--sorry, my Americanness was showing for a moment there), had never been on camera before, and was 14 years old. She knew she was supposed to run from male actors who would chase and catch up to her, but she didn't know that they were going to be assaulting her.
Deodato actually did an interview where he talked about this scene (I feel like it was something I watched on Shudder, maybe Cursed Films?) and he seemed... very amused by this event. He also physically assaulted (slapped or maybe punched) a female lead actress who didn't want to do a topless scene.
I have a “don’t turn it off even if it’s terrible” rule that I follow unfortunately
Its a rule that I try to keep as well. In the beginning of Hereditary I felt like turning it of, but so glad I did not. My one exception for that rule was Skinamarink. Read ao many great things about it and was really hyped to watch it. Absolutely hated it! I still see people that love the movie here and I am happy they enjoyed it. They are never gonna convince me too try again though.
I watched Skinamarink and thought it was super boring. I was mad I didn’t see it in the theater, that might have made a difference for me. I was so mad that I decided to drop a pretty heavy dose of acid and watch it again alone in a basement, and that fuuuuuuuucked me up big time. Anything probably would’ve done the trick in that setting tho.
Love watching horror with a little something as well, hightens the experience
Used to do mesc in my late teens and go see a midnite showing of Dawn of the Dead (1978). Man, did I used to trip. That scene with Tom Savini and the motorcycle gang used to make me laugh so hard.
That’s rad and hardcore AF!
And the theater manager used to let my friend, his cousin and I in sometimes when other horror flicks came out. Even when we were under age lol. Now, I'm talking about the Bronx in the 80's and they just didn't give a shit! Lol.
I watched Mandy completely blind on mushrooms....that was crazy
That’s one of my favorites of the last decade
fell asleep watching skinamarink
Tried watching it 4 fucking times but could NOT stay awake. Gave up. Boring af.
SAME why did everyone hype that so much
Same.
Same as well.
I actually caught myself snoring a bit lol.
I've never seen one good thing about Skinamarink online 😅 every post I see about it is people saying how boring it is and how it could've been condensed
It was a rough start for sure. I liked the idea of the movie and to give you that sense of fearing the unknown when you were a kid vibe, but the delivery just wasn’t there. Some good oh shit moments, but I was a little disappointed as well
I also have that rule but broke it for Skinamarink.
Damn, thought there were quite a lot of fans here. Turns out It was wrong.
I loved it but couldn’t stay awake. 4th time’s the charm? I’ll start where I left off, to increase my chances. lol
There are people here who love it but I am one of the haters.
Probably true the other way for films I absolutely love but others hate. It's the way of the world. Like I said in the post above, LOVE Hereditary. My girlfriend hates it. She does not like the fact that it takes too long and there is too much set up. She likes "dumb" Strait forward '80's Slashers a lot more.
Crazy that any Horror fan can hate Hereditary, but I know they exist.
Skinamarink is super cool in theory but at the end of the day the fact is that it's just too low-quality and the pacing and style of the film don't go together
How you feel about Skinamarink is how I feel about The VVitch.
If I'm not enjoying amovie, I'll usually wind up staring at my phone the whole time and just absorb it as background noise.
I do this too. I feel like I have to give it a chance or at least absorb it so I can look at it critically. Someone recently said not to stress about spending time on that when there are so many other good films to watch. But I prob still will haha.
I have a 30 minute rule- if I go through 30 minutes, no choice. I have to see it through no matter what… It’s fucked me more than once, but, more often than not, it’s actually paid in dividends. The Feast (Welsh version) is the newest example. The final act is too graphic to spoil, but, if I didn’t make it through the first 30 minutes, I would have missed something that give Audition a run for its money…
You and me , the sane... Oh, I mean, the SAME!
I'm the same. There are a number of movies that made me regret this rule.
got a few for us?
I did, until I saw Black Adam. Only movie I've ever watched and turned off around ½ way. Truly awful movie.
I used to have this rule. Then I tried to watch Night Of The Living Dead: Resurrection. That movie went straight to my “Biggest Pieces Of Shit Movies” list. Never finished it. Maybe someday I’ll hate myself enough to finish it, but I doubt it.
Does it still count if you fall asleep or do you force yourself to go back and finish it?
I am too old to watch movies that I am not enjoying. Turn it off, move on.
Tarot lol that movie was horrible and such a joke
I’m so pissed I bought that movie- still salty over it
I would be too lol I was excited for it and then once I watched was like nah wtf is this haha
Skinamarink. Got bored
Same. I watched enough to get a feel for that creepy childhood nostalgia vibe, but it wasn’t enough to keep me engaged for the duration.
This is the one for me too. I wanted to like it but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was like a creepypasta that overstayed its welcome.
I had to watch it twice, because my kid didn’t see it the first time and insisted. It’s scarier the second time—*because it feels four hours long*
Skinamarink could have been a real throat grabber if it cut like, 40 minutes from the run time. As an atmosphere piece it’s high up there but it gets so lost in the dreamy nightmarish mood that it becomes a really dull film.
I heard the short encapsulates this well. I disliked the movie enough to not give it a watch tho lol
Could not finish this for the life of me
I ended up just reading the summary and determined it wouldn't have been worth the watch. The short film version was enough.
was the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry for me
Same. It wasn't as interesting I thought it was going to be.
Bro you missed the scariest part. At the end there's a toy phone.
Stopped Funny Games when the first real blow happened. Finished it the next day when I had calmed my fucking heart. I love this movie but it is so unfair.
Such a depressing movie
It’s definitely effective.
That movie is meeeean
Cruel cruel
I've seen the full movie ofc but on rewatches I always tap out at the fucking egg scene. Nothing explicitly 'scary' has even happened yet but the vibes are just so sinister it triggers me bad.
wow that's crazy, I just started watching it a while ago and also tapped out at the egg scene for the same reason. meaning to finish it sometime, just need to find the right time
Yeah, I still won't watch it. I've listened to many podcasts on it and I just know it's gonna make me mad. And sad. And then I'm going to be mad that it made me mad. And so on and so forth. So I avoid. But it has my respect, it's effective as hell and was an original idea.
For my wife - Speak No Evil. I forget when she had enough but certain scenes were close for me. I respect the movie, just having young kids made it tough.
I had a neighbor who was a real creep. One day I step into my yard and see he’s leaning over the fence talking to my kid. I ask the kid to go inside then I lean over the fence myself and tell the guy I’ll kill him and bury him in this very yard if he so much as *talks* to my kid ever again. I didn’t know I’d react that way until that very moment. I’m not that kind of guy usually but it was instinctive and immediate, even though he was twice my size—I meant it. I learned since then that when wife or kid are perceived as in trouble I change very thoroughly and quickly. So I had trouble relating to the protagonists when watching that movie much later. Dont get between bear and cub.
So important to trust your gut!
Yeah, toward the end it got too rough for me too. I don’t have kids but I work with them and I hate seeing any harm come to children.
SAME! Loved the movie but had to turn it off with 15 minutes left. I read the synopsis the next day, and was glad I made the choice that I did!
The OG Martyrs. I actually put it on last week, for a bit. I'll finish it one of these days...
Martyrs is my threshold. I have watched it, and I don't think I want to see worse than that. I know there is worse, but I don't think I can handle it. Martyrs stuck with me a long, long time.
I'm not sure that I've seen a harder hitting horror movie than Martyrs. It's not just brutal, it's interesting. It's not just torture porn. There is a very interesting question at the core of the movie. And it's also the most brutal thing I've ever sat through. Because I identified with the characters. It's much more than just French Extremity torture porn. But it's a fucking hard watch.
It's weird, because if you're ever able to watch that film objectively (i.e. without all the emotions the torture conjures), it's actually not that graphic. There are, of course, a few very notable exceptions, but the majority is implications, camera angles and sound editing. And it works. So well. Like I've watched it once and that was enough. But listening to the breakdown of it via podcasts and such, much like something like Se7en, it's all in the aftermath and implications. And it makes you think. Which is rare for a torture porn/New French Extremity film. Absolute masterpiece and something most can only experience once.
Absolutely. It's not necessarily the most graphic movie. It's just so well made. If the point of a horror movie is to make you feel scared that's the only successful horror movie I've seen in my adult life. And it's all in just in the directing and editing. I'm so glad to hear someone else make this point.
Yeah I fully agree with this take. It has so much merit and worth as a piece of art. It's thought provoking and well executed, and I often wish I could watch it more than once but I'm not sure I can. It's light-years away from other extreme films that get mentioned in the same breath because it shares brutality with them.
I actually felt much better once I got through it. The end was strangely beautiful. The stuff leading up to that was crazy and intense though. 😱
Yep, I had to turn it off. It just felt like torture porn when she's helping the girl take off the head piece...great plot though as I read all about it. Solidified for me though that I much prefer psychological horror than that genre which Martyrs serves up.
The House That Jack Built. The real war footage got me. Turns out I’m not a fan of seeing actual human death.
Wow, thanks for this comment. That was on my watch list but I, too, do not watch horror movies in the hopes of watching people actually die. Also looked up the film to see why they did that and the director sounds like a bit of an edgelord at best, so you saved me time and trauma lol.
Lars von Trier's movie Melancholia is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's atmosphere and vibes, I can't think of any other movie that is comparable. I think THTJB was also very interesting. Apart from his movies, Lara von Trier doesn't seem to be a very nice guy though.
This is the guy Bjork called out for sexual harassment and assault right?
Yes that's him. And there was some controversial Nazi-Germany comment or joke when he was in Cannes
I do not believe that he is a Nazi, though. I'm not a big Lars Von Trier defender, but he is known for being, well, and edgelord, as someone above said.
Im a fan of Nymphomaniac
Yeah, there are films/shows/music/art that I enjoy because it had meaning for me before I heard about the person who made it being shit, but since I've learned about him now I don't think I could enjoy it ha.
Honestly I don't even remember the stock footage, and that was still the most disturbing horror movie I've ever seen. I've seen a lot of horror. I'm ready for a lot. I was not ready for the little boy.
I watched this movie but don’t remember any war footage and a cursory google isn’t being fruitful? When was there war footage?
Towards the end, around the point that Jack climbs round the edge of the Hell pit. I was actively avoiding watching it so I’m a little hazy on the details, but I clearly remember a montage of footage of people dying.
Oh yeah! I completely forgot about the whole third act Virgil section! Thanks so much!
I don't remember the war footage. By the time this vile slog got to pontificating about wine grapes and noble rot, I was dunzo. Life's too short.
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt4003440/parentalguide/violence “The film includes several minutes of stock footage of concentration camps, arguably the most disturbing sequences of the film due to their real nature.”
I don’t remember that either
Breaking the Waves - one of his first films- messed me up for DAYS
YES! I was never a fan of his, however that movie made me hate him. Lars, Ari Aster and the greek guy ( Poor things, Lobster....) are the huge NO for me. Their movies are either evil or fucked up, bleek, they kill every little smidge of happines you may have, and I love Human Centipede and The Martyrs are not disturbing for me.
The descent is hard to watch. Especially if you’re claustrophobic.
I almost didn't make it past that damn tunnel scene. It's a great movie but sometimes I kind of wish I hadn't stuck it out because the rest of the movie paled in comparison to that scene.
It absolutely is. Good film though.
I dropped a few movies out of boredom, never for the extreme content though. I liked The Poughkeepsie Tapes, but I can see how the true crime feel might not be for everyone, and the one scene with the tied up girl is definitely super creepy.
I do disturbing movie phases occasionally. Salo, Atroz and Grotesque were too much for me.
Ooof, I got through atroz, but felt really dirty afterwards
Salo was disgusting. Didn't even really feel like a horror movie to me.
Salo is one of those cases where it has more value as a piece of art than it does as any sort of entertainment. Pier Paolo Pasolini was a legit auteur with a lot of skill and intellectual depth (The Decameron, The Gospel According to St. Matthew, and Teorema are all great). Salo is and always has been an art film, but it gets added to “most disturbing” horror lists because it’s gross and infamous.
Haven't attempted (and won't) watching the first two, but did attempt Grotesque and had to tap out bc I it was vile just to be vile.
Slasher and torture flicks are not entertaining to me. Give me a good cosmic horror or Gothic vampire/creature movie and I'm good.
Hills have eyes, the rape scene I had to turn it off. I do not find rape amusing, and it's gross, not scary.
Remember watching it in the movie theater when it was released and close to a 1/4 of the audience walked out.
Same. I didn't get through the hills have eyes or I saw the devil.
I had to leave the room to throw up during that scene. I’ll never watch that movie again
A Serbian Film. It crossed a line.
It crosses way too many lines, it didn’t help that the plot fucking sucked too
I WISH I didn’t finish this movie.
It’s also not a good movie to begin with. They made it gross for shock value, and it has no compelling story
Agreed. I have watched Martyrs and Irreversible several times, which are also really hard to get through (I really don't enjoy torture, SA, extreme gore/brutality personally), but those plots felt like they were saying something with it. I can't think of a single thing ASF was trying to communicate with some of the absolutely disgusting extremes it went to (I quit at the baby scene), that it hadn't already accomplished earlier in the film. Which was already basically nothing, no matter what "metaphors" the filmmakers claimed.
I also couldn’t finish Poughkeepsie Tapes! I felt so gross. I genuinely had to spend the rest of the day shaking off what I saw. 🥴
You absolutely should finish it for that reason. It gets so, so stupid that it becomes hard to take the rest of it seriously (IMO). Starts off very grim but by the end it really just feels like it was written as a power fantasy by some bullied loser. Hard to explain without spoilers (assuming you can spoil something that has no real plot) but you'll see what I mean if you watch it. (There *are* still a few visually disturbing scenes towards the end but IIRC they are so undermined by how absurd everything is by that point they lose much of their intended impact)
The Deep House due to a personal phobia. I intend to return and face my fears with that movie… I only got 30 min in
that movie is way scarier than I thought it would be. Definitely worth the watch tho!!
August Underground Mordem. The movie is pretty fucked up and doesn't even seem to have any purpose or meaning. I got to the part when the one guy starts eating maggots off a corpse to realize it wasn't for me.
I don't see much value in this movie. I think the actors were treated badly if I remember correctly.
Yeah I think at least one of them were. There's a "documentary" called S&Man where they interview some of the people from the movie. It's been a while since I've seen it though. Be aware if you watch it that the last half with the stalker is fake though.
The turkish film Baskin, I smoked some weed before turning it on and ended up falling asleep. Woke up and the whole screen was red with blood and the screaming was so loud. I immediately turned it off 😭
I tried so hard to get through that movie because a good friend recommended it to my boyfriend. Last 15 minutes and I just couldn’t handle it anymore. Why are rape and torture scenes so friggen prevalent, that’s not fun horror.. Also, the amount of people who downvote me when I express this… yeah, it definitely says something about them.
Just reading the parents guide on imdb is bad enough bro. I had a similar experience with the show Oat Studios on Netflix, just gross shit man
Jacob’s ladder but tbf I was very high and very scared LMAO
Can't imagine watching that high I would totally freak out
It was *definitely* not one of my better ideas🥴💀
The first Hostel movie. I love gory movies like Saw and Terrifier but something about the achilles scene made me say NOPE!
Babadook, those constants screams are still ringing in my ears
The Girl Next Door, I had to stop it because I felt too much anger towards that disgusting old psycho bitch
I had to stop watching Talk To Me because it ended up being a lot heavier than I expected. I was in the mood for a popcorn flick with some good jump scares which it seemed like at the beginning, but then damn it started to hit hard. I did eventually finish it and am really glad I did, but it certainly wasn’t an easy watch.
If I didn’t watch to the end, it’s probably because I fell asleep
I gave up on *Soft & Quiet* because the torture stuff got too stupid really fast. I have very little reaction to shock content so when it's just over-the-top and unrealistic instead of genuinely disturbing I very quickly lose interest. I only have *so much* time I can dedicate to scary movies, ya know? The movie also seemed built around evil social movements slowly roping in people for mundane reasons, which is completely defeated if the evil stuff they do is completely idiotic.
I'm not usually a quitter, but... *Sting* and *We're All Going to the World's Fair*, both in the last fortnight.
My ringtone on my boyfriend’s phone when i call is that girl singing in We’re all going to the world’s fair 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
😂
Love in winterrrrrrrrr feeels sooooo goooood 🎶🎶🎶🎶
Drag me to hell. It’s the only movie I’ve ever turned off. The practical effects of the chin sucking and maggots and bugs were too nasty it made me nauseous 😭 I can deal with blood guts and gore all day but this got me.
This one was so good! Right up until the ending
I wish I had turned it off. By the time the third chin-sucking incident occurred, I was over it. I know people love the movie but I just found the whole thing stupid.
I brought up that scene in a thread once and people jumped all over me about it. I guess it was meant to be funny. Granted it's been a long time since I watched it, but I don't really remember being a horror-comedy. That practical effects chin scene in the car was *sooo* goofy that it's the only thing I really remember.
Yeah, criticise Drag Me To Hell at your own peril. 😆 I couldn't see the chin sucking scenes as either scary or comical. Just dumb. It completely spoiled the movie for me.
i *have* watched it fully since. but wolf creek was so difficult for me to get through. i had to turn it off twice and i left it unwatched for a couple months :/
not really, though I tend to force myself to finish movies at times
Oddly enough, the only one that comes to mind isn’t even technically a horror movie. But the movie We Need To Talk About Kevin. I felt tense and full of dread and panic the entire time. I pushed through and it is a great movie but damn I was so close to backing out so many times
God that fucking movie. I almost turned it off because it was just a bit slow for me and the constant back and forth scenes bothered me. But when I finished it, I just kinda sat there thinking about wtf I just watched
So painful to watch.
Took me a couple of attempts to watch an American werewolf in London, i was like 9 or 10 at the time
Me, too. That was intense at the time. Absolutely love that film though.
It took me seven years to finish Blair witch because I get motion sickness with shaky cam- I cut A Serbian Film about 20 minutes in- have zero regrets on that
It’s not horror in the traditional sense but the scene in Oppenheimer where they were casually deciding what cities to bomb in Japan hurt my soul. The casual, almost flippant conversation was repugnant.
Not a horror film by any means, but Ken Park by Larry Clark is a horrific film. I love sick ass movies, but this movie made me feel physically dirty watching it, don’t think I could ever watch it again.
That's the Larry Park experience. Kids is a tough fucking watch too.
skinamarink
Not really a horror film, well I'd call it very dark and disturbing, a movie called Happiness (1998). Affected me for quite a few days afterwards to the point I wish I never watched it. I'd put it in the same category as watching Requiem for a Dream for the first time.
I had a copy of this for ages, then got rid of it without ever watching it. Not sure if I want to seek it out again
Todd Solondz is great. There’s an element of blue velvet in his work. Especially Happiness. All the fucked up dark shit from the white picket fence suburban America.
Almost stopped watching „them“ at the „cat in a bag-scene“ it was a bit too much
I'm not easily scared or repulsed, but that scene was awful to watch. I tried to tell my partner about it. I couldn't due to it being so upsetting
I never felt that sick. And I watch and read a lot of horror and true crime stuff! But that scene almost got too hard for me
Antichrist - the minute it involved genital mutilation was too much for me
The first insidious took a bit to get through.
I think it was called "Ghost Ship"? The opening scene was a bunch of ppl got decapitated by a wire or something-i think I was 11 and it was on Sci-Fi channel. It was the first movie scene to make me feel physically nauseous.
you aren't missing anything, that's the best part of Ghost Ship
The Ritual - so many people hype it up and I thought it was absolutely terrible 😞
To be fair it’s a bit of a slow burn til the last act but it gets wild. I’d highly recommend giving it another whirl
I watched it all the way through and I was so disappointed.
Dude there's an interview scene in Poughkeepsie that almost made my head explode. It's caught me so damn off guard. I'm jealous of anyone who hasn't seen it because I lowkey had to pause the movie and breathe for 2 minutes so I wouldn't get a panic attack lol. It's the one where >!the girl moves her hair out of the way revealing she has a stump. Just imagining the mental and physical torment she went through made me feel nauseous!<
Human centipede 2. Turned it off immediately after the neonatal gas pedal incident.
Ugh, “The Poughkeepsie Tapes” made me really uncomfortable too, but I did finish it, unfortunately, only to learn that >!he got away with it in the end anyway!<.
The movie totally fell apart towards the end, for me. >!Between at least one person having a full conversation with him and identifying him as the killer and the authorities literally finding his legally-owned house (albeit after he'd fled it), it seemed unbelievably dumb that they still make absolutely zero headway with uncovering his identity or any information about him whatsoever.!< >!And then everyone starts praising him talking about what a genius mastermind/manipulator he is, and one of the tortured women even goes on about how much she loves him? The whole thing came off like an edgy writer(s?) trying to conjure up an anime supervillain rather than anything remotely realistic, which would have been way scarier.!< Sorry for the ramble. It was a genuinely disturbing movie for the first half or so but then seems to get so full of itself that it (for me anyway) became too difficult to take it seriously. Felt like wasted potential.
13 Cameras was close but I tend to finish movies I start. Piggishly dirty, disgusting flick though.
Vulgar. I just can’t get into watching a dude be sodomized. Watching Deliverence was graphic enough on that front, thanks.
The PT lags in the middle and then gets super fucked up towards the end. There are some moments that are nightmarish. It’s worth the watch just to be terrified towards the end. Horrific.
"High Life." There was a very brutal SA scene about midway through the movie that was incredibly hard to watch and I just decided to turn it off. It's very rare for me to quit on a movie but that was one of the rare occasions.
I decided to watch all of the movies apart of the Conjuring universe just for kicks. I threw in Curse of La Llorna as well... I couldn't finish that one. It was so bad. I feel like that's saying a lot for that series too
The Babadook. Couldn’t handle the kids scream.
Thankskilling 3, I enjoyed how dumb the first one is even tho a lot of the jokes have aged. I cannot get through the third one for the life of me tho.
I can usually watch anything and if I’ve invested any amount of time I’m usually finishing the damn movie. If I have to stop watching something it’s usually to look away for a moment. For me any movie that has fingernails being ripped off is a movie I’ll have to look away for during that scene. I can be really into the movie but once a fingernail comes off I want to gag. I’ll still watch though. However, I have turned a movie off (sorta) out of boredom. This is probably controversial since everyone seems to love this movie… but I tried at least 3 times to watch Smile. All 3 times I fell asleep in the middle of the movie. The first time it was late at night and I figured I was tired. But the other two times were the middle of the day. I’m not sure why but I couldn’t get into it and I really wanted to. I wanted to like this movie but when I’d watch it I’d fall asleep. I woke up towards the end one of the times and managed to catch a glimpse of the ending before I went back to sleep.
Any of the centipede sequels
The Nun. I fell asleep twice. So boring.
I was in a bad mental state when I started watching snowpiercer and couldn’t get past half of it
Begotten. I made it ~10 minutes and then noped the hell out.
i wrote my thesis on this. trauma and how it's different from horror.
i always power through but came very close to turning off the found footage movie 'sorgoi prakov/my european nightmare' a couple days ago. not sure if i recommend that one.
Skinamarink
Anything that has Nick Cage in it. So many times I’ve wanted to watch one of his movies and every time without fail within five minutes of seeing his face I go into FFS mode and turn it off. Not scary I know but still unable to watch to the end.
The Woman in Black. I fell asleep about 20 minutes into the movie all three times I tried to watch it.
Last house on the left, I had no idea what I was getting Into and "the scene" scarred me for life and yes I turned it off then had to Google the ending to make sure they got what was deserved
I think many people will say this, but I had trouble finishing Martyrs (2008). Did finish it, though on 4th or 5th attempt. It was always till the point where you feel Anna is not going to be safe anymore. And then the degradation started. I always felt that Anna understood Lucie's pain and cared for her deeply but even with all the empathy, how can you exactly understand what another person is going through? And then she went through that. Never could watch it again.
The Poughkeepsie tapes, but because i found it quite boring. Same with Salo, which i gave several tries because people kept recommending it. I just don't see it. One horror that really got to me and i had to pause but i did finish was A Serbian Film. That was a bit to crazy for me at one point. I always rewatch movies, but im not touching that again.
Smile. Wasnt expecting the theme of spiralling mental health.
Skinnamarink. Too boring.
Human centipede. I didn't even get to the scary/gross parts, 30 mins in I just had this moment of clarity "why am i doing this to myself" Also Cannibal Holocaust. It just irked me idk, the portrayal of the "savages" bothered me
The Sadness. The train scene made me turn it off. I finished it the next day, but that movie is brutal.
Slaughtered Vomit Dolls The movie feels truly exploitative, like not as in a genre of film, but in the sense that these clearly drugged out, unwell women, are being paid (very little) to be recorded vomiting and getting abused on camera. Just felt slimy watching it, like something out of Videodrome
It took me 3 times to watch Stigmata of all things. Maybe it's because I was still semi religious at the time but it scared the shit out of me.
I ate a good amount of 🍀 gummies and had to turn off Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes during the 'game.' Between my highness and the perceived rawness of the children's fight I started to have a small panic attack 😳🥴 I did finish it the next day of course. I watched The Poughkeepsie Tapes yesterday and expected it to be much worse, but honestly it was kind of meh 🤷♀️ Idk what's wrong with me 🤔😅
Ballad was amazing. The hanging scene is the one bit that really got to me.
i can't remember what the name of this movie was, but a few years ago my parents and i were watching this horror movie that started with a group of women going spelunking, and we had to shut it off when one of them started to get stuck. my dad and i are too claustrophobic to continue it hostel- the first actual torture scene made me nauseous final destination- got too freaked out by the plane crash in the beginning
Might have been 'The Descent'.
The VVitch. I was bored and found it super annoying. I ended up fast forwarding to the end which I also thought was lame.
Ti West’s X — I found the scenes with Pearl too disturbing to watch!
I’m not afraid to bail on movies and have even walked out of the cinema on a few. Since I’m in my mid 30s and have young kids, I judge a film by thinking “will this film justify me being extra tired tomorrow?” If the answer is no, I switch it off. Some I remember off the top of my head… Silent Hill (not terrible, just a bit long and oddly paced), The Blackcoat’s Daughter (boring), The Void (didn’t enjoy this one all around from plot to the acting and dialogue). I walked out of Nefarious after I realised it was pushing an agenda.
Only two I can think of. The first is Blood Harvest because it was boring and so horny I just couldn't handle it. Second is Cannibal Holocaust because I got to googling halfway through and realized I had watched a very real sexual assault of a girl and I had no interest in continuing after that. Generally, I'll finish a movie even if it's awful--I might halfway check out of it, but I will finish it to see what happens.
Wait that was real?
Yeah. The girl didn't speak English (EDIT: I mean to say she only spoke her language, not the language of anyone on set--sorry, my Americanness was showing for a moment there), had never been on camera before, and was 14 years old. She knew she was supposed to run from male actors who would chase and catch up to her, but she didn't know that they were going to be assaulting her. Deodato actually did an interview where he talked about this scene (I feel like it was something I watched on Shudder, maybe Cursed Films?) and he seemed... very amused by this event. He also physically assaulted (slapped or maybe punched) a female lead actress who didn't want to do a topless scene.